151–160 of 910 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That device you used to post that comment, what, did you create it? Those clothes you are wearing, did you create them? The car you drive, did you create it? I’m not saying anything pro/con the LVT. But measuring ownership by whether you created it or not is a pretty terrible measure. You wouldn’t own _anything_ worth any value in the modern world.
The difference is that someone created the products that I own and I payed them for it. However, no one (at least no one human depending on your religious beliefs) created the land.
This isn't going to change much about landlords. If anything, it will increase the amount of housing rented through landlords, because the land value tax will make it uneconomical for more people to own their own homes. In a high value area, the only people who would be able to do so are the very rich.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The main reason the California system is a disaster is that long-time owners are grandfathered and pay very little tax, meaning there's no incentive for these people to support more housing. In other words, if California actually did kick out homeowners for their neighborhood getting too popular, it would have been much less of a disaster.
Kicking out long term residents sounds kinda sick doesn't it? Think about it. You're just gonna have homeless old people.
It was true that before Proposition 13 many older homeowners who could not keep up with rising taxes were forced to sell. But taxes were rising because house prices were rising, so they were able to sell at a nice gain.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that it was never "your" land to begin with (what, did you create it?), that's not an unreasonable approach.
In the US, people have the right to property (unlike say, places like Canada https://www.albertalandinstitute.ca/resources/property-right... ). This is a freedom enshrined in the US Constitution and through the fifth amendment. If the Detroit government pushes too hard and rapidly deprives certain parties of their land, they can expect a constitutional challenge.
In effect, the argument is that since land was not created by anyone then no one has any more right to it than anyone else. So the land's value should be shared among all of society; which is precisely what a Land Value Tax seeks to do.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does this interact with the fact that housing is maybe the biggest economic issue that America is currently dealing with? That suggests to me that land is still pretty important. This doesn't apply to what Detroit is doing, but you could probably also take the underlying logic of land taxes (rent seeking should not be protected from taxation) and apply it to other more modern forms of property.
The housing shortage is the result of under-building over the past fifteen years, exacerbated by labor shortages in the construction industry and trades. On the land side of the equation, the problem is zoning not bad tax incentives. LVTs could move the housing supply needle in some locales but if you want to increase the supply of housing there are bigger dragons to slay.
Stop letting low tax paying SFHing leech off the system, and we will be incentivized to build more.
I like this. It's like "use it or lose it".
Because living in your home isn't a good enough use?
I don't about increasing taxes on home owners, but more so disincentivizing siting on vacant property that could otherwise be used better.
You're welcome to sit on that property, but you're incentivized to get it rented instead of not developing it.
Since people can barely afford land and homes as it is, I’d love to hear how this will help make land more affordable or available.
In theory by encouraging more efficient use of land, i.e. denser building. So you make land more affordable by using less of it per person for apartments.
We have more housing units per capita than any time in US history. Why do you think we need more?
Perhaps someone who has thought about this more can explain how a 'land value tax' differs from existing property tax regimes that explicitly examine the value of improvements and the value of land... This Detroit case is interesting because there are different rates of taxation on the land, but the difference in rate could also be obtained by increasing the land component of a parcel's value.
They are loading the tax burden on the land rather than on structures. So, you can build the Taj Mahal or leave the lot a burned out wreck-- either way you pay the same tax. Many comments on the thread overstate what this is. I happen to think it's interesting, but for reasons unrelated to the article-- it's kinda goofy for the state to tax personal property that happens to be fixed to a location, like a fireplace, s…
In practice, real estate is the 20x more valuable than any other personal property, so it doesn't make sense to tax anything else. Cars are subject to a registration fee.
If you own expensive business machinery, that may be subject to tax in some states. My county also taxes boats and airplanes.
Perhaps someone who has thought about this more can explain how a 'land value tax' differs from existing property tax regimes that explicitly examine the value of improvements and the value of land... This Detroit case is interesting because there are different rates of taxation on the land, but the difference in rate could also be obtained by increasing the land component of a parcel's value.
California property tax bills have two components [1][2]:
- structure/improvement assessed value
- land value assessed value
The land value component is re-accessed frequently and changes based on comparables (presumably but its mostly black box).
The question is to what degree/portion of Georgianism to apply and what to do when the land value component starts going up infinitely that its starts hurting the electorate.
Do you introduce alternative tax sources (i.e. income)? Do you introduce caps on annual land value increases or add a bunch of waivers for specific use cases (i.e. primary homes, day cares)?
Or do you just stick with the unrelenting assessed value increases and go free market/no pain no gain/survival of the fittest on the electorate?
Basically Texas is basically the US experiment closest to pure Georgianism.
[1] https://www.propertytax.lacounty.gov/Home/AnnualSecuredPrope...